Forum Flash | What was she thinking?

Last year's political follies starred several GOP officials who stepped into it, and deep, with remarks about women and rape. Though it's very early in 2013, another GOP lawmaker is already following in those ignominous footsteps.

This time it is New Mexico Rep. Cathrynn Brown, a Republican and an attorney who just started her second term in office. She proposed a law that would make post-rape abortion a felony in her state. As it was drafted, the measure says abortion after a sexual assault would be considered tampering with evidence.

Critics immediately pounced on the proposed law as a way to criminalize abortion as well as make criminals out of victims of rape or incest. According to the Associated Press, Pat Davis of ProgressNow New Mexico said the bill "turns victims of rape and incest into felons and forces them to become incubators of evidence for the state."

As for Rep. Brown, she basically issued a "my bad" after the critics weighed in. A USA Today story quotes the lawmaker as saying she "missed" that interpretation of her bill, claiming it was only meant to deter rape and to target attackers, not victims, and that she would work on re-drafting it. (The news outlet asked Rep. Brown what language she would use to clarify the bill, but she had not responded to emails for the story.)

Apparently, she wasn't the only person to "miss" the implications of her misguided, misfiring bill. Nine GOP lawmakers co-sponsored it.

Democrats hold control of both chambers in New Mexico, so there is little chance that the bill with any language will have any future there. But if past is prologue, these things tend not to happen in a vacuum. Stay tuned.

Louisville, Kentucky • Southern Indiana

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Forum Flash | What was she thinking?

Last year's political follies starred several GOP officials who stepped into it, and deep, with remarks about women and rape. This time it is New Mexico Rep. Cathrynn Brown, a Republican and an